Arup, the engineering firm behind dozens of architectural masterpieces [check out our coverage of ARUP here], has opened three new architecture offices, officially known as Arup Associates. Stretching to Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzehen, the overseas expansion marks the first of its kind for the 65 year old practice. These offices will employ about 15 architects and 12 engineers. While Arup’s London office has faced declined in the recent years, the Chinese offices are already thriving with the design of a campus for Nokia and an insurance building for Ding He in Shenzhen. Declan O’Carroll, Arup’s head of global architecture, told the British publication Building Design, “The traditional model of the Western international practice has been to have a shop window in developing countries but with the work executed back at home. We are looking at a much more fluid, unorthodox model.”
We received this tragic news from reader, Johan Nordstedt, concerning Stockholm’s School of Architecture at the Royal Institute of Technology. Early Wednesday morning, the roof of the lecture hall situated on Östermalmsgatan quickly filled with smoke. From 7.10 in the morning until 7.30 in the evening, fire fighters worked to contain the flames and prevent the building from collapse. More than 80 fire fighters were on call to put out the flames, yet due to the building’s old construction, the fire spread quickly.
Get your architecturally inclined taste buds ready for this! Coolhaus – a creative gourmet ice cream sandwich line served from a vintage mail truck – is currently roaming the streets of Manhattan. After beginning in LA and moving to Austin, the truck is now on the East Coast satisfying architecture lovers with their delicious all-natural creations such as the Mies Vanilla Rohe (Vanilla ice cream + Chocolate Chip Cookie) and the Frank Berry (Strawberry ice cream + Snickerdoodle cookie). The brain child of two women who share a love of architecture and of course, ice cream, this funky business is a triple entendre and a play on three factors: the Bauhaus as an influential modernist design movement of the 1920′s and 30′s, Rem Koolhaas who challenged the mantra “Form follows function”, and “Cool house” – an ice cream sandwich deconstructed into a cookie roof and floor slab with ice cream walls.
Check out this beautiful restoration project by Pascale Guédot and Michel Corajoud which transforms an industrial factory into a Multimedia Center. Situated in Oloron Saint Marie, the site is part of a larger urban renewal project intended to reconnect the abandoned site to the center of the city and infuse a new spirit into the building while reclaiming the site’s natural setting.
More images and more about the project after the break.
Check out this charming twist we spotted on childhood classics such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Three Little Pigs. This new take, by Steven Guarnaccia, modifies the beloved tales into a new architecture-infused storyline complete with new protagonists [Philip Johnson, Frank Gehry and Frank Lloyd Wrighth] and the Big Bad Wolf “huffing and puffing” to blow down Fallingwater. We enjoyed the humorous graphics and hope you do too! Guarnaccia is the chair of the illustration department at Parsons the New School for Design in New York City.
Butong, originally a Swedish-based firm, specializes in a unique concrete moulding process which offers a wider range of freedom to designers. We’ve featured Butongpreviously on ArchDaily as their product was used for Visiondivison’s Cancer City resulting in an amazing lightweight slightly-transparent concrete landscape. The company has just shared their latest collaborative work – an installation between the Collectifs Cochenko and Quatorze as part of the drug awareness campaign commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture and MILDT. The project, translated to “Space, light, sound and drugs,” creates a sensory environment combined with a personal experience due to the visitor’s movement and mindset.
More images and more about the project after the break.
In recent years, UNStudio – which has been internationally recognized for its approach to developing dynamic forms – has also grown to focus on sustainability with the intent to decrease C02 emissions. With this in mind, the firm, with consortium DUO², has realized one of the most sustainable large office buildings in Europe for two governmental offices, the Education Executive Agency and the Tax Offices. “The design contains numerous new innovations related to the reduction of materials, lower energy costs and more sustainable working environments. It presents a fully integrated, intelligent design approach towards sustainability,” explained Ben van Berkel.
More images and more about the project after the break.
Last year, we shared the results of Europan 10 with you - a biennial competition asking architects for innovative housing solutions for European sites. For 2011, the competition’s objective is to promote awareness about the environment and how we occupy the natural world. We’ve been covering the 2011 proposals, such as Europan Norway 2011, and today, we share an update on the progress of the Europan Norway 2010 winning scheme. After winning the Europan for Trondheim Norway, Point Supreme Architects, Alexandros Gerousis and Beth Hughes, have recently completed the second phase of the concept design and are preparing for the project to be realized. Recently, the project was identified as a pilot project for the Norwegian government’s ‘Cities of the Future’ program – currently one of only 6 in Norway and the second in Trondheim. The project will serve as an example of environmentally sustainable design strategies combined with innovative architecture – reflecting the ambitions and principles of Svartlamoen which has also been regulated as an eco-urban testing ground.
This year, undergraduate students from the Aarhus School of Architecture [check out previously featured student works from Aarhus] will be collaborating with Northern Europe’s largest cultural and music festival, the Roskilde. 125 students were involved in this two-month long project which ultimately resulted in a experimentation of light, materiality and space. Entitled Vintergatan , the installation is a modular exercise as different sized triangles are combined to create varied spaces. The name refers to the installation’s main motif: a ribbon of light that surrounds the square in front of the Pavilion’s stage, where a series of upcoming bands will perform during the festival.
More images and more about the project after the break.
At the end of this summer, our friends from Visiondivision will complete their latest commission, a waiting room for a private athletic clinic in Stockholm. By separating the clinic from the larger hospital, the architects were able to create a peaceful haven within the institution. This new section boasts a more refreshing environment that is brightly illuminated and designed for comfort.
More about the clinic and more images after the break.
With only 16 days until opening day, the city of Xi’an, China is preparing for one of the largest international horticultural events of the year. Unified under the exhibition’s theme of “Eternal Peace and Harmony between Nature and Mankind,” the 418 hectares of well crafted landscape and landmark architecture are rooted in cultural symbolism and designed to illustrate the city’s promising future. Twelve million guests are expected to visit Xi’an and experience the exposition’s new perspective about the harmonious coexistence between human and nature, city and nature.
More about the architecture of the exposition after the break.
We are happy to share that our friends from New York-based Weiss Manfredi will be recognized at the 2011 AIA Honor Awards Ceremony in New Orleans this May. The firm’s Diana Center for Barnard College has infused the urban campus with a new sense of vitality as the vertically organized quad unites landscape and architecture with interior and exterior spaces. While the building contains 98,000 sqf of mixed use functions, the project also strongly emphasizes the constant connection between urban user and nature as a grand diagonal slash through the building creates a double-height glass atria to provide inward, as well as outward views. The slipped atria and an unfolded glazed staircase bring in natural light and eliminate visual boundaries between the College and the city, while providing spaces for informal interaction to encourage collaboration and dialogue across disciplines. The building has achieved a LEED Gold certification and Debora L. Spar, president of Barnard College explained, “The Diana Center has not only transformed the way our community interacts, but through its environmentally responsible design and function, has inspired us to become active participants in sustainability efforts. The project was also named a winner of ArchDaily’s Building of the Year Award for 2010 [be sure to view our full coverage of the Diana Center previously on AD].
JAJA Architects just shared the news of their competiton proposal for an extension of Falkonergården High School in Frederiksberg, Denmark. The competition attracted over one hundred proposals, and JAJA’s placed third for its “…respectful relation to the existing buildings through its geometric formal language”. The jury explained, “The shape appears logic with an interpretation of the buildings existing virtues. And the objective of capturing the warm glow of the surrounding buildings with new materials seems very convincing.”
More images and more about the extension after the break.
This year,I Saloni of Milanwill be celebrating its 50th year! The cultural institution has grown dramatically over the years from an initial 328 exhibitors featured in 11,000 square meters to over 2,500 in an area now measuring over 200,000 square meters. The Salone Internazionale del Mobile is almost here and several architects will be presenting new furniture. Ben van Berkel of UNStudio has shared three new seating designs that will be featured this month: My Lounge Chair for Walter Knoll, the New Amsterdam Chair for Wilde+Spieth and the SitTable for PROOFF. “The architectural approach to furniture is different from that of the industrial designer as the architect begins with the space and the environment that the chair will become a part of. All the details of the chair are considered for their spatial effects. This architectural approach to furniture is connected to a very personal ideology of space,” explained Ben van Berkel.
We were quite happy to receive a book on the Aga Kahn 1st prize and shortlist proposals as ArchDaily has followed the 11th award cycle. Beginning with an inspirational foreword, Farrokh Derakhshani explains the importance of such an award as it looks to highlight architecture rooted in an awareness of aesthetics and cultural aspects within the Muslim world. During the 11th award cycle of 2010, the shortlisted projects were shared with the public to promote further discussion. With this in min t,The book offers an indepth look at the 19 projects, complete with the steering committee statement and master jury report.
SCI-Arc, Los Angeles’ cutting edge architectural institute, has just announced Thom Mayne as the newest Trustee of the board. Mayne’s addition to the board emphasizes SCI-Arc’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of traditional architectural form and theory. Back in 1972, Mayne co-founded the institute along with seven faculty members and approximately forty students who left Cal Poly Pomona to form a “a college without walls.” For the past nearly four decades, Mayne has been an integral part of the university, serving as a juror, lecturer and generous supporter of the school. ”Thom Mayne is the quintessential SCI-Arc architect. His addition to the board is indicative of the fact that SCI-Arc continues to re-imagine the content of architecture,” said Director Eric Owen Moss. According to SCI-Arc, this appointment complements a series of events that have prompted the school’s growth both physically and programmatically.
Our friends from UNStudiohave shared their latest 66,000 square meter Galleria in Cheonan, South Korea, with us. The Galleria attempts to re-define the traditional typology of such a place, as changing societal norms in Asia have led supermarkets to operate as “social and semi-cultural meeting places,” according to Ben van Berkel. As a result, the project blends the functional aspect of a large scale commercial store, while placing emphasis on maintaining a sense of public space for social and cultural aspects.
Dominique Ghiggi, a landscape architect and academic assistant at the Institute of Landscape Architecture in Zurich, has published a book examining the changing relationship between man and nature over the course of history. The work is perfect for those connected with the environment as it examines tree nurseries scattered across the world and their social, economical and contextual significance.
